‘Long 1970s’

Today it is widely recognised that the 'long 1970s' was a decisive international transition period during which traditional collective-oriented socio-economic interest and welfare policies were increasingly replaced by the more individually and neo-liberally oriented value policies of the post-industrial epoch. Seen from a distance of three decades it is increasingly clear that these socio-economic and socio-cultural processes also found their expression at the level of national and international political power. The contributors to this volume explore these processes of political-cultural realignment and their social impetus in Western Europe and the Euro-Atlantic area in and around the 1970s in the context of three agenda-setting topics of international history of this period: human rights including the impact of decolonisation; East-West détente in Europe; and transnational relations and discourses. Going beyond the so-called Americanisation processes of the immediate postwar period this volume reclaims Europe's place – and particularly that of smaller European nations – in contemporary Western history demonstrating Europe's contribution to transatlantic transformation processes in political culture discourse and power during this period.